European Championship gold goes to Austria, Johannes Ludwig blunders – and Felix Loch goes to the Winter Games for the first time without any title: At the Olympic dress rehearsal in St. Moritz, the German lugers clearly missed victory, Ludwig, who was so strong recently, awarded the almost certain Podium finish with a bad mistake in the second heat and finished only 11th.
Wolfgang Kindl won the race on Saturday ahead of Kristers Aparjods from Latvia and was thus crowned European Champion for the first time. Record world champion Loch messed up the first run and finally made it to fourth place, the Austrian Nico Gleirscher snatched the last place on the podium from him. Olympic participant Max Langenhan was seventh.
The European Championships were also the last World Cup race of the season, and Ludwig had already secured overall victory here for the first time a week earlier. The Thuringian travels to the games in Beijing (February 4th to 20th) as currently the best German luger, this year he won five World Cups.
The former dominator Loch, on the other hand, does not hold a single major title before the Olympic highlight, that has never happened before: in 2010 he was world champion, in 2014 world champion and overall World Cup winner, and before Pyeongchang 2018 Loch still won the overall World Cup. Loch has only won one race this winter, at the sprint in Sigulda he was at the top. The chances of the third individual gold after 2010 and 2014 seem questionable.
Especially since the international men’s field is currently balanced as it is rare, which also becomes clear when looking at the list of winners: Roman Repilov holds the World Championship title, a Russian, European champion is the Austrian Kindl, Ludwig brought the World Cup crystal ball to Germany. Loch currently believes up to eight lugers can win the Olympics.
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